Please feel free to share any dreams you have had about our destabilizing climate in the comments section – they will be anonymized before they are posted.

In the dream, I am suddenly aware of a very loud sound, like an alarm, coming from invisible loudspeakers in the sky. No one else around me seems to notice. I look up into the sky and see a vivid scene playing out. I figure out quickly that the scene is meant to show people what is happening at an unseen level, in this case, what is happening in the ocean. With the sky as a kind of movie screen, whales are shown thrashing around, contorting as if they are in great pain. Some are dying. It’s not just a film, it’s real, it’s a reflection of what is happening in the oceans. I point to the sky to try to get people around me to notice, but they don’t seem to care. Some of the people are my friends. I don’t understand why they aren’t upset. In the next moment a large group of birds appear and they are wheeling wildly in the sky. In seconds they all slam into the ground. I’m horrified because I can hear the impact of their bodies on the concrete, and can see their bodies on the ground. I know this has something to do with the hundreds of millions of birds who die every year in the US when they hit buildings and windows. This dream was more of a nightmare for me, and I feel like I am supposed to do something to stop the suffering and death of animals, I just don’t know what to do anymore.

~ Anonymous

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R.W.W. Greene (He/him) @rwwgreene.bsky.social

Had a dream last night that I — and either @glenngiven.bsky.social or @danielbrian.bsky.social — were defending a ferryboat full of climate refugees by using Harry Potter spells. Apparently, I was saying them in my sleep.

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Emily Stepp @emilyart.bsky.social

I had a dream the other night that alligators’ native range expanded into the midwest region because of climate change. Probably not that unrealistic.

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remotecore @remotecore.bsky.social

Had a weird dream. Was at a meeting with world leaders. And I insisted they showed a particularly powerful episode of The Simpsons, that dealt with climate change. People were in tears by the end of the screening and the whole tone of the meeting after was transformational.

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Matthew R Francis @bowlerhatscience.org

I have that kind of dream often (I’m usually late by like six hours or two days or something ridiculous like that). Last night’s was … I had inherited the family farmhouse, but there was a league of supervillains working on “solving” climate change by making other things worse, etc.

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@amcglashen.bsky.social

Climate change is bad but last night I had a dream that a colony of Wood Storks was nesting near me here in Michigan, and it was awesome.

Please feel free to share any dreams you have had about our destabilizing climate in the comments section – they will be anonymized before they are posted.

I had a dream … I restored all climate control, 4 seasons appropriate by region around the world. ~Anonymous

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The whole of Sainsbury’s and their main internal warehouse storage have empty shelves.

There are no food stores. Like when pandemic and Brexit caused totally empty shelves in supermarkets… except in the dream I see behind the scenes and there is *nothing in their main storage* except a handful of plastic items. ~ Maša Kepic

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I’m part of a small group, circulating on foot between different wooded oases in a desert to be near to the water. The woods are remnants of temperate forests, and the desert is new, but the trees maintain the water where they are alive. We have to watch out for forest fires starting so we can escape to another wooded area. We’re next to the water in one place, at early twilight, when we hear crackling and see the orange glow through the trees. But as we’re climbing the clay bank of the lake we find deliberate hand prints and patterns drawn with sticks in the clay, and decide to wait.

Soon an injured bear swims by and approaches us, so we change our minds again and leave with the bear so she can get treatment. She’s ok. But I’m then in a different space, indoors with a bigger group and artificial lighting. There’s a meeting to discuss plans about a war and I go with my notebook, because it’s important, but then I can’t write anything because my tears are falling onto the page. ~ Anonymous

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I had a climate dream recently when forecasts announced the massive flooding in Greece.

I was at home and it started raining the way you’d expect the biblical flood to start raining down. Things continued as normal for a while; I took a bus to work and back, and walking back from the bus stop, had to wade through rising waters. My house is in a high area of town, so walking up the road from the bus stop I made it out of the accumulated flood waters, but they still kept rising so fast they were lapping at my heels, flowing up the street behind me steadily. I was always only a step or two ahead. They kept flowing uphill through the neighbourhood around my house and eventually reached a neighbour’s garden pond that they pooled into and then just sat there. It had stopped raining at that point as well.

I don’t remember how the dream transitioned, but it ended on a fairly high note in that the entire community came together to fix things up. We also planted magrove trees to stem potential future floodwaters. (This makes very little sense since I live in Europe, but hey – dream logic!)

I guess there is really a twofold meaning here – climate anxiety and guilt on the one hand, and being aware of the importance of action and community on the other, so it wasn’t an altogether terrible dream.

~ Anonymous

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My sustainability scientist sister had a dream about me doing some field work about climate adaptation and holding a handful of dripping we sphagnum moss wrapped around something smooth (like a pebble) ~ Anonymous

I had a dream last night I can’t stop thinking about, and then today while cleaning out my inbox I stumbled upon this eerily apt forum for it.

At the start of the dream, suddenly the world went dark. All humans and animals received the message – an announcement – that the sun had died, and sea levels would soon rise – implying that’s how the world would end in the next few days. I see a whale carrying a group of people (almost like a cruise ship) receive the message in the shape of something (UFO-ish) covering its eyes before it nods in understanding and swims away to deeper water with all those people aboard. I was on a boat with my best high school friend (we’re from Massachusetts and spend time on cape cod). We go to shore, walk through familiar cape cod streets to her house to see her mom and dad. (Her mom passed away 3 years ago). Her mom tells me that my mom will come to be with her when the end comes.

I spent the rest of the dream truly believing the world was ending and haven’t been able to shake that feeling since I woke up. I’m 30 btw for data purposes. ~ Anonymous

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Some quick context: My dreams weren’t specifically about climate change but I think they’re tied to it. Last week I saw a news update about how climate change is causing really high ocean temperatures in some areas and wiping out entire coral reefs. And I also read about two incidents in the past few weeks where pilot whales have been purposely beaching themselves en masse off the coast of Australia – which to be fair, the reasons for the beachings are still unknown. But I had a conversation with my mother about how our actions, or inaction in some cases, are making seas unlivable for so many creatures — because of climate change, pollution, technology, etc. And we might start to see many extinctions of aquatic species. Then that night I had the following dreams:

I was working as a manager at an auto shop and when I looked out the window I saw a new species of penguin that looked part human (the body was penguin but the head was human, and the eyes were cartoonishly big and shimmery blue like you might see on a stuffed animal). It was a mama penguin and her baby. I told a coworker that I really wanted to go see these penguins in their natural habitat some day and she said we should go to Tierra del Fuego because it was nearby and we could even walk there. So we walked over to Tierra del Fuego 😆 and when we get there, there’s a music festival going on with people all over the place and music blasting. And all I could think was, “how completely irresponsible! These poor penguins can’t even enjoy their own space now because of us!”

Then in another dream I went to a club with a friend and to be let in you had to put your hand through a mouth-like space in this giant wooden door. And inside there’s a giant eel-like tongue that you have to put your hand on so it would open the door. I was so disgusted but I did it and someone who runs the club came out and started telling us all about the tongue. He said it was a marine species and that the most difficult thing about dealing with them is trying to get them to clean the toilets. And he even showed us the toilets and tried to get it to eat the junk in there right in front of us. And suddenly I felt so sad for the tongue eels because I realized these horrible people were forcing them to eat sh*t.

~ Anonymous

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It started as one of those reality competition shows…I don’t remember much, but my team was diverse and we were tasked with waterproofing this 2 story white home, we were on the sand and the tide started to come in fast…so fast…and tall…as big as buildings and in the water encroaching on us were whales mostly…some other sea creatures and a white horse speeding towards me in front of the wave. Then I woke up with just that image of the wave and white horse…speeding towards me. I didn’t feel doom or particularly frightened…just and acknowledgement of this is what’s happening. ~ Anonymous

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I also had one that featured a very industrial, metallic, city…not much nature…bikes were stored and you were able to get and use these foldable bikes from point A to point B…they were for everyone to use…then after everyone got a bike we used them and dropped them off. They were featured on some sort of hanging dispenser….flash to the other part of the dream, this was in the future, everyone used a scientific device as big as an air tag perhaps. We clipped it onto our chests and then could leap great distances with ease…the length of bridges and football fields…using some sort of gravitational pull. When I awoke I told my sister but told her I wasn’t sure I’d want these inventions to be made as the amount of waste produced by them was enormous and the sky was grayish brown and foggy..

~ Anonymous

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I was under the ocean in a white type of undersea train…on either side were huge windows showing the giant jellyfish swimming next to us. They were absolutely beautiful ~ Anonymous

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By Kyla Mandel – Time Magazine:

July 27, 2023 1:40 PM EDT

Martha Crawford started having climate change dreams about 11 or 12 years ago. Unlike many of her previously remembered dreams, these were not fragmented or nonsensical—they were “very explicit,” she recalls. “They didn’t require a lot of interpretation.” In one, she’s reading a textbook about climate change and then throws it behind the back of her couch, pretending it doesn’t exist. In another, she’s sitting in a lecture given by a climate scientist. But the professor starts yelling at her for not paying attention, and she fails the course. The meaning was pretty clear, says Crawford, a licensed clinical social worker: “You’re not paying attention, and you need to pay attention.”…..

To continue reading this article at Time Magazine about the Climate Dreams Project – click here:

My brother constantly talks about a recurring dream he has where there’s a water shortage and he realizes the solution that saves the world is to dig up all the trillions of half empty discarded bottled waters that won’t biodegrade for another 300 years and empty them ~ @thx3188.bsky.social

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Had a complex and vivid dream about AI saving humanity from climate apocalypse but the price we paid for our survival as a species was AI became our overlords.

Moral panic and power-guilt dynamic from bootlicker subservients brought our species to heel.

~ @nanofractal.bsky.social

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I once had the good fortune to dream I was riding a humpback whale (through flooded NYC post-climate apocalypse ~ @adigoesswimming.bsky.social

Dreamed last night that in the second half of a Flood Football game, players floated in inner-tubes

A dream from 2011, remembered and shared online, ~ Anonymous

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Recently had a vivid dream where I was dining in a small outdoor patio in Boston with my brother and sister, while a few other parties ate at nearby tables. After some time, everyone noticed the sky darkening and a huge wave of seawater approaching rapidly from a distance. Although we were close to the top of a tall building, dread sank in my stomach as I realized the wave was already close to our height. Immediately, I grab our things and rush inside the door separating the patio from the indoor restaurant.

Everyone, including my siblings, stared in shock and confusion at the tsunami, slowly rising from their chairs but still frozen by fear. The first wave hit before we know it, and it’s like the entire ocean has suddenly appeared before us. Since it already crested before reaching the patio, this wave wasn’t quite big enough to go over our heads, but it still knocked everyone off balance, battered the patio, and threatened to drag people out to certain death.

In between waves, each one becoming larger and more violent, I would open the door and attempt to grab as many people as I could, including my sister. An elderly man and his wife got knocked very badly against the door, but other people inside helped me pull them to safety. Everyone else in the indoor part of the restaurant watched this unfold in horror.

My brother was the last one remaining outside, but the screen door is shut tight due to the force of the water slamming against it, and everyone panicked. I went into a state of absolute focus trying to pry the door open. All the while, his back pressed against the door as he stared fearfully at a gargantuan wave bearing down on him.

To everyone’s relief, the door eventually popped open and we pulled him inside before the last wave crashed against the building. My sister hugs me, soaking my clothes, while I breathed heavily, listening to her say: “It’s okay, I’m so proud of you.” I can barely speak from the terror of it all, distantly wondering about the safety of the rest of our family. ~ Anonymous

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I am told we have to leave in a hurry, not even time to make coffee. We gather a few belongings and are driving North. People are fleeing because of a predicted heat wave. 3 weeks of intense rain have just ended, things are green and the ground is wet and water flowing like we haven’t seen in years. Now it is predicted to all dry up within the week. It feels so wrong, I am aching for this to be a false prediction. I arrive at the house of a friend in Southern Oregon, where a large group is preparing to drive to Portland. I only want to go if I can fit in their car, I am worrying about the extra gas everyone is using to drive away. I am looking at the weather app trying to decide if it is safe to return to Northern CA. It feels good to see old friends in the group and a part of me really wants to view this as a vacation, an opportunity to connect with loved ones. ~ Anonymous

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A friend has a sea anemone garden, they’re all dying except for the tips. I encourage them that they’ll grow back. Then, a tsunami hits Cornwall.

A mutual surf friend disappears, days pass and there’s no sign. Everyone’s crying. They’re never found. Everyone’s crying and thought each other were going to die. A baby’s swept away as it hit the hospital when her mum gave birth. She turns up 3 yrs later.

I wake up in panic and upset. ~ @masa_kepic via Twitter

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The not-so-distant future where rapid, intense weather events happen frequently due to climate change, and there’s Mad Max-esque storm chasing marauders who vigilante patrol the streets in GIANT TRUCKS. I hope we run out of fossil fuels before then. ~ @tmartillo via Twitter

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I was to present virtually at the national conference of social workers, pitching for either funding or a longer presentation about my research around “climate distress.” I didn’t prepare for the talk and was running late. I logged in and knew I was being projected on a large screen in a conference room. I said something about climate distress, how we used to call it eco anxiety but the term has evolved. [side note, I have no idea if “climate distress” is a phrase that’s in use]

I noted that I had written my dissertation on increased climate distress during PMS for women, then corrected myself to “people who menstruate.” [good job dream-me catching my exclusionary language]

I asked for a show of hands if people who thought climate change wasn’t real, then a show of hands for people who experienced climate distress daily. I raised my own hand as a model. “We’re careening towards making the planet inhospitable for all of life, of course I’m distressed every day,” I said.

I panicked about whether I had used up my 5 allotted minutes and if I said what I was supposed to say.

~ @ChristinePsyD via Twitter

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I have been chosen by a very renowned climate scientist to give a speech on their behalf. It is spontaneous but I am ready. I face a large lecture hall that is in constant motion – teachers are directing whole classes of kids to move from one side of the room to the other. People keep asking me questions. But I am undaunted, my presentation is fluid and emergent and right on.

The auditorium is filled with pictures of different mushrooms and these are important to the scientist’s work. I am asking the audience to reflect on their sense of belonging in the natural world, and their level of grief. There is a theory underlying the lecture about how these two experiences entwine, but it is overall very positive – there is a sense of active hope pulsing through the words and the crowd.

~ Anonymous

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Woke up at 8:34 1/22/23 from the craziest dream ever about climate change

First dream was me in the Middle East or United Kingdom or somewhere that wasn’t the United States. Horrible earthquakes cracked the crust of the earth and allowed for it to become quicksandy and lava started to rise out of it creating a hellish landscape . I tried to climb a building up but everything was just sinking . I ended up falling into a crowd of people and just being consumed by the lava.

Second dream was me in my car parked in front of a house. I was looking out the window for like 20 minutes at the grey sky. It got continuously more windy slowly but surely. By the end of it the wind was so strong like a tornado I could barely make it inside the house. There was however this big yellow glass box that looked designed to withstand this exact situation. I crawled over there and was safe from the extreme weather.

Dream three: The ground shattering and opening up below us.

Dream four was billions of people being funneled into a giant room. It was similar to a giant rocket league arena. I think it was like that big yellow glass box but a lot bigger . Able to hold the earths population. At the end of the dream the entire face of the earth was different. It was all completely icy and the only habitable part was a giant plateau with a city on it

~ Anonymous

 

I was in a dance studio which is in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, however the studio looked bigger more like a gym with large windows. I was there for a dance workshop with a lot of other people. The studio suddenly was near the sea, and a bunch of water was flooding the studio. It seemed harmless at the time, only for the damage to the furniture and the building. We moved inland away from the water, however, it kept coming in…I kept running, slowly leaving people behind, and meeting new people at different points. People were trying to barricade the water away too…I kept moving inland but the water would just keep coming…and then I woke up. ~ Anonymous

I am enjoying a long luxurious shower when it occurs to me that I haven’t showered like this in ages unless I am vacationing someplace wet. I hurriedly finish up.

I am visiting a friend who has been ill with covid. Despite her long recovery she still has multiple loaves of fresh baked zucchini bread for her guests. We wander out to see the zucchini growing and her garden is exquisite and abundant, with flowering bushes towering over my head. We collect flowers for wreaths, everyone is wearing flowers.

I begin to wonder how they have the water to maintain this garden, I think I have not seen flowers in such abundance that we can wear them in ages, and I compare it to my own parched land. I am not sure if I should be happy for my friend – this generous, giving person – that she has water, or angry that she is using so much when I cannot.

I am walking holding my daughter close when I come upon an old friend who long ago moved away. She tells me she has moved back for the summers but will still be wintering in Florida because she does not like the winters here in Northern CA. Confused, I say, “but you know it never rains here anymore?”

A woman gave a talk. She was an artist. She made art about the Arctic and climate change. She had made a film, I think, which we watched, and it had sea creatures in it. And she was very clear that all hope is lost. At the end of it I was crying. I think I was on a ship or a boat; there were people all around. Then a sailor found me and tapped me on the arm and gave me something from her – it was a gift, a kind of starfish? It was black and velvety; I’m not sure if it was alive or It was an artwork. But she had wanted me to have it, because she knew that I had received her film in the right way. I began looking for her on the ship. People were dressed up as though for a Christmas party. I was only wearing one shoe and I needed to find the other. It was a bit like Selfridge’s department store, and I was also looking for a Christmas present for my partner. At one point I was holding a flat cap. Somewhere there was an assistant who could help me buy the right present. Someone recommended by magazines, perhaps Virgil Abloh. I still had the black velvety starfish in my hand.

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I have a recurring dream I’m on the top floor of a building. For some reason, I know there is going to be an earthquake and the building is going to collapse. I try to warn people. The whole time, for some social reason (it’s an important meeting, a family reunion, a debate—this part changes), I can’t get a word in.

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If you would like to submit a dream feel free to comment on any page. All dreams will be stripped of identifying information before posting unless you indicate you would like to be credited.

You can also read along with dreams collected from Twitter @climatedreams